The Annawan girls basketball team won two state championships with a third-place state finish over a five-year period from 2012-13 to 2016-17.

A decade later, Annawan is unable to field a team at any level this year.

Kewanee is just playing at the varsity level this season due to low numbers. Just 12 girls came out, including only five freshmen. Athletic director Tim Atwell said, “It is going to take a while to recover.”

DePue had just four girls come out this year, unable to field a team. Those girls are suiting up for the boys team.

LaMoille has been unable to field a girls team in recent years due to lack of interest.

St. Bede has seen its program numbers drop from 28 last year to 19 this season, head coach Tom Ptak said, a dip of 32%.

For the first time in his four years as head coach at LaSalle-Peru, Adam Spencer said the Cavaliers are unable to field teams at all three levels. They currently have 22 girls out, including four seniors, six juniors, eight sophomores and four active freshmen (started with six).

They are just a handful of the schools that have been affected by a national trend for declining numbers participating in girls basketball.

According to the Sports Business Journal, numbers for girls basketball are down 19% since 2002, while track and field participation has grown by 10%, volleyball by 15% and soccer by 27%.

Despite the “Caitlin Clark Effect,” referring to the former Iowa and current WNBA star, what was once the most popular girls’ sport now ranks fourth, just ahead of softball.

Of the 19 girls out for St. Bede this season, there are three seniors, two juniors and three sophomores with a promising freshmen class of 11 strong. The Bruins have been able to schedule 5-7 freshmen games this year, Ptak said, but they are finding a lot of schools don’t have freshmen teams.

With only three sophomores, one who plays on the varsity, St. Bede’s JV team is pretty much a freshman squad.

St. Bede senior Lily Bosnich, who was a key contributor on the Bruins’ fourth-place state squad as a sophomore in 2023-24, opted out of basketball last year to focus on her training for track.

“I am worried about the decline in numbers, which is across all schools,” Ptak said.

Spencer said the lower numbers this year affects the L-P program in many ways.

“We’ve been practicing as one large group for the last couple of weeks because with 10 juniors and seniors if we’re missing anyone we can’t go up and down. If we pull up two or three and they’re missing anyone at practice, same issue,” he said.

“We’ve been lucky before this year with three full teams and 18-20 freshmen. This year there were more cheerleaders, dance team, or travel sports instead of basketball in the winter.”

Spencer said L-P has had schools on its schedule also feeling the numbers crunch. Sycamore, a school of more than 1,100 students, has just two levels this season with 11 varsity players and 10 on varsity, according to coach Adam Wickness. Rock Falls, which has 12 girls total with no seniors, playing in essence a JV team in the rugged Big North Conference varsity slate, canceled its varsity game with L-P in November.

“It’s definitely a negative trend for the sport,” Spencer said.

Retired Hall of Fame coach Brad Bickett commends the Rock Falls girls, including his sophomore daughter Miley, who are playing basketball despited the stacked deck against them.

“I hate to see the numbers decline,” Bickett said. “In Rock Falls’ case, it’s not because of our head coach. We couldn’t have a better guy than Dan Herrera. He’s done more for our program than any one knows. To only have a dozen kids is sad.

“I sure commend the girls who are out and their parents to make a good decision to represent the school rather than throw in the towel because most nights you’re pretty much overmatched. They don’t quit and keep coming back for more.”

Numbers are holding strong, however, for the Bureau Valley, Mendota, Princeton and Hall programs.

“Our numbers have been fairly steady over the past several years, generally in the low 20s. This year, we actually saw a slight increase and are at 25 participants,” BV athletic director Philip Pryzbyla said. “We’ve consistently been able to field both a JV and varsity team, and this season we even scheduled a few stand alone freshman games. In that sense, our numbers run a bit counter to the national trend.

“I think a big factor is the strength of our coaching staff and the emphasis they place on the ‘family’ aspect of the program. The girls genuinely enjoy being around one another, which has had a positive impact on both recruitment and overall program culture.”

The Storm program is building for the future with eight freshmen and nine sophomores to go with nine upperclassmen - three juniors and six seniors.

Numbers at Princeton have been steady, athletic director Jeff Ohlson and coach Tiffany Gonigam said. This year’s varsity roster has three seniors, five juniors, one sophomore and a freshman. There are an additional seven sophomores, some who dress varsity, and eight freshmen with one senior foreign exchange student for a total of 26 players in the program. Two would-be senior contributors did not go out this season.

In comparison, 10 years ago, in the 2015-16 season, the PHS varsity roster had seven seniors, four juniors and two sophomores.

“I would say we have about the same to slightly more girls than we have in the previous years,” said Gonigam, who has served as varsity coach for seven seasons at PHS in two stints, 2017-21, 2023-present. “We have always floated between having a full freshman schedule and scheduling a few games to make sure all girls had an opportunity to play in games. We carry eight on our ‘F/S’ team, nine on JV, and 13 dress varsity.

“We have a full schedule at each level this year. Unfortunately, we have had many JV games dropped due to low numbers at other schools.”

Gonigam said some outside resources have helped keep the Tigresses program viable.

“We have several girls who put in a lot of work on their own, some who have played travel in the past or currently do,” she said. “I also credit our Rim Rocker program here in Princeton, who are working hard to teach the game and get young girls excited about playing.”

Hall Athletic Director Eric Bryant said the Red Devils program’s numbers are holding about the same the past couple years they have been.

“We have actually been able to have about 10 or 12 freshman games the past couple years,” Bryant said.

The Hall varsity roster consists of five seniors, two juniors, two sophomores and a freshmen. There are 22 girls in all, including eight freshmen. By comparison, the Hall varsity roster had six upperclassmen and six upperclassmen three years ago.

Mendota head coach John Hansen has been with the Trojans program since 2014, first as freshmen coach. The program is thriving 34 strong with 12 freshmen, 12 sophomores, nine juniors and one senior. In eight seasons as head coach, Hansen said there’s only been one year they couldn’t field a freshmen squad, which reflects with this year’s senior class.

“Our program numbers are something I’m extremely proud of and that I do not take for granted,” Hansen said. “We’ve played several teams this season that only have one level. I think our numbers speak to several things - our culture that we’ve built/pushed at the MHS level, parents/teammates continuing to push our kids, the lower levels and youth camps working hard, etc.”

Why the low turnouts?

So why are the numbers declining for girls basketball?

Many coaches point to the demands put on athletes by travel teams such as club volleyball.

“Some choose travel volleyball over basketball. I wish the in-season sport at your high school were a priority,” Ptak said.

“I do feel for some area programs that just don’t have the numbers for whatever reason it may be. I know kids are ‘specializing’ more. Some travel teams have forced them to choose certain sports,” Hansen said.

Bickett, who’s a basketball/volleyball dad at Rock Falls, doesn’t care for the demands put on kids by club volleyball teams.

“My kids have been put in that situation. I think the club coaches and programs would prefer kids don’t play basketball and focus on volleyball,” he said. “That’s not appealing to the Bicketts. It will never change in our household. The school sports take precedence. We’re going to be parents to teach our kids to play both. In some households, I’m not sure parents want to take the time to do both. Maybe it’s easier to do one.”

Bickett and Hansen said basketball can be a hard, demanding sport that many choose not to play.

“Basketball is hard work,” Bickett said. “It’s a running game. It’s 84 feet from baseline to baseline and 50 feet from sideline to sideline and 32 minutes getting on the floor. I don’t think kids want to put the work in.”

“Basketball is hard. If you don’t really put in the work, it’s hard to hide it, and you can get embarrassed,” Hansen said. “There’s other sports where you can maybe more easily hide a weakness or get by doing just what’s required at practice. You can’t just pick up a basketball and be good enough.

“So the lack of free time and dedication to the work on their own makes it hard to keep up. Easier to give up on it then vs. getting embarrassed or working even harder to catch up.”